External Links

Elizabeth Engelhardt

Core Faculty

Department Chair of American Studies

Contact

Phone:
232-2707

Office:
BUR 416

Office Hours:
Mondays 8am-11am

Biography

Elizabeth Engelhardt has taught in American Studies and the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies here at the University of Texas, Austin from 2004 until the present. Since receiving her doctorate in Women’s Studies in 1999, Dr. Engelhardt has held academic positions at Emory University, Ohio University, and West Virginia University as well. A native of western North Carolina, she is never happier than when she can write and read with her feet in a mountain stream.

Research Interests

Dr. Engelhardt’s scholarly interests include food studies, feminist theories, ecological literature and culture, Appalachian Studies, Southern Studies, material culture studies, and the intersections of race, class, and gender in American literature and society. She uses a variety of texts, including photographs, letters, diaries, novels, poems, and recipes and employs interdisciplinary methodologies to understand them. Her newest research looks at gender, food, and foodways across the US South.

Recent Publications

Dr. Engelhardt’s most recent book emerged from one of her graduate seminars. She is the lead author of Republic of Barbecue: Stories Beyond the Brisket (University of Texas Press, 2009), with Marsha Abrahams, Marvin Bendele, Gavin Benke, Andrew Busch, Eric Covey, Dave Croke, Melanie Haupt, Carly A. Kocurek, Rebecca Onion, Lisa Jordan Powell, and Remy Ramirez. The book explores the life and culture of Central Texas barbecue and is an example of collaborative scholarship and community-based pedagogy.

She has also written Beyond Hill and Hollow: Original Readings in Appalachian Women’s Studies (2005) and Tangled Roots of Feminism, Environmentalism, and Appalachian Literature (2003). She has published articles in journals such as Southern Cultures, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Legacy, and the Journal of Appalachian Studies. Her work also appears in books such as American Vein and Cornbread Nation 3. She is the coordinator, with the Southern Foodways Alliance, of the Texas branch of the Southern Barbecue Trail Oral History Collection, www.southernbbqtrail.com.

WGS 345 •
Southern Cultures

Is there such a thing as southern culture? Should we more appropriately speak of southern cultures? Can we speak in one breath of Appalachia, Delta, Tidewater, Cotton Belt, Sunshine Belt, Gulf Shores, Ozarks, Piedmont? This course will explore not a single, solid south (though we will investigate how that concept has been deployed over time and for specific political purposes), but rather multiple, fluid, and diverse southern cultures. We will explore borders and boundary making from not only geographical and political, but also cultural perspectives. Fair game for our study, then are NASCAR, mega-churches, beauty pageants, birthplace of jazz, country music, the Dirty South, Black Mountain College, Little Havana, migrant farm culture, matzo ball soup with collards, Trail of Tears, Gullah, Sweet Auburn, Tara, Graceland, and Disneyworld. We will begin with the states themselves: Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas. But we will also consider who and what else fits or does not fit: East Texas? Maryland? Cuba? West Virginia? Oklahoma? What are the stakes involved in defining “The South”? What are the stereotypes and what are the individual truths about “women,” “men,” and “southern” in this context? We will look at the multiple experiences of diverse Americans living in the southern United States—black, white, Native American, Hispanic, Asian, working class, middle class, upper class, etc. We will study how ideas about “The South” have changed over time and across the country. We will use fiction, film, popular culture, letters, diaries, and a grounding in scholarship for this interdisciplinary exploration.

Requirements

This course will combine the writing of essays, research presentation, and exam. By successfully completing the course, students will be able to: discuss historical and contemporary connections between ideas of region, culture, and diverse people; analyze how racial, class, gender, and ethnic differences affect experiences of place in this context; research in depth individual, societal, and material details; and develop creative and academically rigorous methods to analyze representations of southern cultures in multiple media sources.

Possible Texts

Mark Howell, From Moonshine to Madison Avenue: A Cultural History of NASCAR

Gary Pomerantz, Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn

Jeff Biggers, The United States of Appalachia

Florence King, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady

Jones, Gray, and Monteith, eds. South to a New Place

Films, articles, and novels to be announced.

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity

WGS 393 •
American Food

Polenta or grits? Spaghetti or udon? Pancakes, crepes, or galettes? Biscuits, cornbread, tortillas or sourdough? Regardless of what we call them, individual ingredients, recipes, and food choices tell stories of race, class, ethnicity, gender, and region in the United States. Thanksgiving dinner at grandma's house, fast food from the drive-through, a slow food meal harvested from the community garden, or five-star haute cuisine at this month’s hippest restaurant? Where we eat, how much we pay for it, and who labors to create it tell us about capital, nation, and connections between global and local economies.

This class will explore diverse American food cultures from a humanities perspective. Along with scholarship in the new field of food studies, we will use cookbooks, novels, poetry, photographs, songs, documentaries, and oral histories to investigate the past and present of American food communities. We will certainly engage our senses to listen, taste, and touch, as well as read about the food practices we are investigating. We will trace a history of diverse American foodways over roughly the past three hundred years; we will also trace a historiography of food scholarship, looking at how this field has blossomed in the past ten years. We will explore the definitions of the "texts" of food studies—from secondary scholarship to recipes, food labels, garden histories, newspaper columns, literary musings, and corporate archives. We are not aiming to define food studies, but are looking at the conflicting questions, problems, theories, and methods.

Course Projects:

Weekly assignments: So that our discussions can begin with substance, each seminar member will submit three discussion questions for the day’s readings. A longer version of each question will be submitted to me by email BY 8AM TUESDAY MORNINGS. For the class, create a shorter version of each question that fits on a standard index card. We will share these in class, so please make them legible and clear to someone not in your head. One question should address the overall argument/significance/or method of the reading. One should involve close reading/analysis of a particular passage in the work. And one should incorporate context/comparison with an outside work/historiography. Your longer version for me (approximately 350-500 words) could include a restatement of the authors’ theses, their research methods and types of evidence, progression of their argument, and or conclusions. You should also discuss how you arrived at the question and your tentative thoughts on answering it.

In addition, each week, one person will take responsibility for bringing some kind of primary material to class to support our discussion—a cookbook, an advertisement, an original recording, etc. It should be something that we can read/view/listen to in approximately ten minutes. You only have to prepare one discussion question on the week you are presenting primary materials; you should, however, prepare a short presentation to contextualize the material and target your question to a discussion of it. Please be prepared to turn in your presentation notes at the end of class.

Major assignment: Each student will produce a long essay (20 double-spaced pages, plus endnotes and bibliography) at the end of the course.

Writing workshop: Students will present preliminary research findings/arguments in a workshop scenario two weeks before the final essays are due. Students are required to read and edit each other’s essays; we will regroup for a final meeting to discuss the essays and to assess the semester’s experience.

Attendance:Because we are building a community of scholars in this class, the regular participation of each class member is crucial. Attendance in this class is, thus, simply mandatory.

In this course, you are a public scholar and writer.All sources used in any of your assignments (directly or indirectly) must be cited; use our field’s style for documentation (Chicago; see the style guidelines for American Quarterly). Students who violate University rules on scholastic dishonesty are subject to disciplinary penalties, including the possibility of failure in the course and/or dismissal from the University.Since such dishonesty harms the individual, all students, and the integrity of the University, policies on scholastic dishonesty will be strictly enforced. For further information, visit the Student Judicial Services website www.utexas.edu/depts/dos/sjs/.

Any student with a documented disability (physical or cognitive) who requires academic accommodations should contact the Services for Students with Disabilities area of the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at 471-6259 (voice) or 471-4641 (TTY for users who are deaf or hard of hearing) as soon as possible to request an official letter outlining authorized accommodations.

Prerequisites Upper-division standing. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Course DescriptionIs there such a thing as southern culture? Should we more appropriately speak of southern cultures? Can we speak in one breath of Appalachia, Delta, Tidewater, Cotton Belt, Sunshine Belt, Gulf Shores, Ozarks, Piedmont? This course will explore not a single, solid south (though we will investigate how that concept has been deployed over time and for specific political purposes), but rather multiple, fluid, and diverse southern cultures. We will explore borders and boundary making from not only geographical and political, but also cultural perspectives. Fair game for our study, then are NASCAR, mega-churches, beauty pageants, birthplace of jazz, country music, the Dirty South, Black Mountain College, Little Havana, migrant farm culture, matzo ball soup with collards, Trail of Tears, Gullah, Sweet Auburn, Tara, Graceland, and Disneyworld. We will begin with the states themselves: Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas. But we will also consider who and what else fits or does not fit: East Texas? Maryland? Cuba? West Virginia? Oklahoma? What are the stakes involved in defining "The South"? What are the stereotypes and what are the individual truths about women, men, and southern in this context? We will look at the multiple experiences of diverse Americans living in the southern United Statesblack, white, Native American, Hispanic, Asian, working class, middle class, upper class, etc. We will study how ideas about The South have changed over time and across the country. We will use fiction, film, popular culture, letters, diaries, and a grounding in scholarship for this interdisciplinary exploration.

Grading PolicyThis course will combine the writing of essays, research presentation, and exam. By successfully completing the course, students will be able to: discuss historical and contemporary connections between ideas of region, culture, and diverse people; analyze how racial, class, gender, and ethnic differences affect experiences of place in this context; research in depth individual, societal, and material details; and develop creative and academically rigorous methods to analyze representations of southern cultures in multiple media sources.

TextsPossible Texts

Mark Howell, From Moonshine to Madison Avenue: A Cultural History of NASCAR